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Thursday, November 29, 2012

A constitution
is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which
a state or other organization is governed. These rules
together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is. When these principles
are written down into a single or set of legal documents, those documents may
be said to comprise a written constitution.

Constitutions concern different levels of
organizations, from sovereign states to companies and unincorporated
associations. A treaty
which establishes an international organization is also its constitution in that it would define how
that organization is constituted. Within states, whether sovereign or federated, a constitution
defines the principles upon which the state is based, the procedure in which
laws are made and by whom. Some constitutions, especially written
constitutions, also act as limiters of state power by establishing lines which
a state's rulers cannot cross such as fundamental rights

Media
can contribute a lot to a society. It can change opinions because they have
access to people and this gives it a lot of strength. This strength can either
be used constructively by educating the people or it can be used destructively
by misleading the innocent people.
Power of the media can transform the whole society especially in the developing
countries it can be used as a 'weapon of mass destruction'. But I think the
most important use of media is to educate the people about the basic human
rights.

The dilemma
of the developing countries is that people are not fully aware of their basic
rights and if they know, they don't know about what to do and where to go. They
don't know their collective
strength. Even they don't know how to protest and what is the importance of
protests. Media should portray the facts. They should not transform the
reality.

Education and discipline is key to progress. This is the difference between a nation and a crowd. Media men have
access to people and they have an audience. Their programs have an impact and
people listen to them. That's why they are more responsible for the betterment
of the society. They should work to educate the people, to help the people and
to liberate the people and to empower the people.

Media plays a very important role in the building of a
society. Media has changed the societies of world so much that we can't ignore
its importance. First of all we should know what the media is. Media is a
source of information or communication. Media includes sources like print media
and electronic media. Newspapers,
magazines and any other form, which is written or printed, is included in print
media and in electronic, media radio, television and Internet etc. are
included.

In this age when there are so many channels and newspapers we cannot ignore its
importance in the society. Media has lot of responsibility on its shoulders as
today's society is very much influenced by the role of media. We believe in
what media projects to us. We change our minds according to the information
provided through it.

In the past when the media was not so strong we were quite ignorant about what
is happening around us. But today we come to know very quickly what is
happening around us. We have the access to all the international news channels
that provide us the facts and figures. Considering this fact that media has the
power to influence society, it should know its responsibility towards society.
It should feel its responsibility
to educate the society in a positive way. It should be giving us fair analysis
and factual information.

But if
there is a constructional defect the media can’t do their normal day to day
work because the constitution binds them together. for instance the 1992
constitution of the republic of chapter 12 states how the media should operate
in Ghana.

Again
the media has very little to do if there is a constitutional defect , for
instance the right of information to the people will be blocked and the media
will limit their information . But they must do well to inform the public about
what is happening to the constitution.

Research
into the media and violence if there is a constitutional defect
examines whether a link between consuming media
violence and subsequent aggressive and violent
behavior exists. Although some social scientists
support this link, methodological and theoretical problems with the existing literature limit interpretation
of findings in this area. There is concern among some scholars that media
researchers may have exaggerated effects (Ferguson & Kilburn, 2009;
Freedman, 2002; Pinker 2002; Savage, 2004).

For example, a 2008 editorial in
medical journal the Lancet concluded that discussions of media violence effects
were exaggerated. There are many explanations of aggressive behavior which do
not emphasize the role of the media. For example, some researchers have
suggested that the pathway to aggression is largely biological/genetic
(see the work of Hare, 1993, Larsson, Andershed, & Lichtenstein, in Press,
among others), while others have suggested that aggression can be explained by
principles of evolutionary psychology.

Another
example is the electoral dispute in cote devoir which came about as a result
of a constitutional dispute of who is the right person to declare the result
of the election. And the media in the country is so quiet especially the
foreign media, but the local and state owned media is being used to insight
the people against the opposition party, instead of the media looking for
solution.

To
conclude, if there is a constitutional defect the media has the role of the
agenda setting theory of showing the way of resolving it, taking into
consideration the cote devoir’s constitutional problem.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Recently, the
profession that I cherish and love so much has come under heavy criticism for
their poor quality work. I must I say am very disappointed at the way some
journalist are handling their work. It is rather sad that some people don’t learn
the profession but choose to copy it blindly and pour it to us we the audience.
I must say that this profession is a good one and can be a bad one if not
handle well which can put the country into danger.

Journalism is the investigation and reporting of
events, issues, and trends to a broad audience. Although there is much
variation within journalism, the ideal is to inform the citizenry. Besides
covering organizations and institutions such as government and business,
journalism also covers cultural aspects of society such as arts and
entertainment. The field includes jobs such as editing,
photojournalism,
and documentary.

A journalist is someone who investigates and report events, issues
and trends to a broad audience through
media. The media is the means or instrumentality for storing or
communicating information. Examples of
the media are newspapers, television, radio, and the internet.

The role of a journalist was to act as a mediator or translator
between the public
and policy making elites. The journalist became the middleman. When elites
spoke, journalists listened and record the information, distilled it, and passes
it on to the public for their consumption. The reasoning behind this was that
the public was not in a position to deconstruct the growing and complex flurry
of information present in modern society, and so an intermediary was needed to
filter news for the masses. The public
is not smart enough to understand complicated, political issues. Furthermore,
the public was too consumed with their daily lives to care about complex public
policy. Therefore the public needed someone to interpret the decisions or
concerns of the elite to make the information plain and simple. That was the
role of journalists.

The public would affect the decision-making of
the elite with their vote. In the meantime, the elite (i.e. politicians, policy
makers, bureaucrats, scientists, etc.) would keep the business of power running
the journalist's role was to inform the
public of what the elites were doing. it has been the believe that journalist
are the ears of the public, for that matter they keep their ears close to the
ground for any kind of information that will come from the government, public
figures, politicians and policy makers to the public through the media. An
examples of the media is televisions,
newspapers, radio, internet etc. In Ghana for instance journalists normally
inform the public in their news bulletins and newspaper reviews which is
normally done in the morning. Journalists are not mere transmission belts for
their own viewpoints or for information provided by others. They do
original reporting, they do not confuse fact with opinion or rumor, and they
make sound editorial decisions but a principal responsibility of journalist.
journalists owe their primary allegiance to the public because through a
journalist the public gets to know what is happening around him or her and it
will help him or her to make well informed decisions and this is where politics
and other things comes into it. This is the major work of a journalist since
they hunt for news and later on package it to inform the general public through
a wider medium either newspaper or the radio station. For an example if an
epidemic breaks into the country, journalists use the media to inform the
public about it and the way they should handle the pandemic.

Journalists also act as a watchdog over the elites(i.e. politicians, policy makers,
bureaucrats, scientists, etc.) as the public had the final say with their
votes. Effectively that kept the public at the bottom of the power chain,
catching the flow of information that is handed down from experts/elites. To
furthermore journalist also act like whistle blowers in terms of corruption.
They do their own investigations to reveal the bad deeds of certain key players
in the society and through that the key players are kept on their toes(their
names does not go on air for disgrace ) in order not do anything bad. They do
this by monitoring the government and the politicians so that they do not go
against our country’s constitution and also to keep them up to their task. A
journalist does this to bring development and democracy in our county. For example if a politician or
the government goes behind the scene to do something bad like bribery and corruption journalist investigate it and
bring them out for public knowledge, by doing this the politician or the
government also try not to do anything bad For instance when the ace
investigative journalist ANAS ARMEYAW ANAS uncover the corrupt deeds of CEPS officials in Ghana, the government has taken
serious action against them and most of
the security officials are now alert and they are prepared to do the right things
or else ANAS will be there again to uncover them .

To further more a journalist also plays the agenda setting
role in our country. This is done by the journalist taking a topic or a problem
that has affected the country either in the past or in future. He does this
either by commenting on it or doing a detail analytical documentary on it which
then becomes the public discussion. For
example joy Fm’s programmed a story on newly recruited government workers like
nurses and teachers who have been paid for long time and how they were made to
give themselves to men and to do other things just because they want to make
ends meat. This became public discussion
and some even took it to the higher authority and something was done about this
very particular issue by the government.

A journalist also serves as an opinion leader in our
community and the country at large. They do this by putting their views and comment
in their viewers and listeners perspective and
what they think is affecting the public and what should be done about it.
They do this as in the form of editorials or in the form of
feature stories. For example the chronicle gave their editorials on
Thursday, August 6th, 2009 edition about the double standards of
politicians

Another major role that journalist play in our country is
education. The most important thing that a journalist do is to educate the
public about an issue, problem, event or
epidemic. He does this by contacting
expect on that issue and he the journalist broadcast it or publicized
it. For example when bird flu was first diagnosed in the world it was the
international media who publicized or broadcasted it and they also did some
analytical report on it by contacting health expect.

With this few words I
employ all journalist to sit up to do the right thing now, before and after the
general elections to safe guard our nation